The Margin of Theft: Daniel Miller on Honest Referendums, a Border Catalyst, and the Long Fight

Daniel Miller opened this Late Night Coffee Talk still catching his breath from the night before, when the TNM team threw a virtual celebration marking 25 years since the day he crossed his own line in the sand and committed to the fight for Texas independence. He was candid about how strange the gratitude felt after a quarter century in which the work drew far more grief than thanks, and he turned the sentiment into a challenge: he has no interest in celebrating another 25. The job is to win.

From there he took the temperature of the moment. The Democrats had busted quorum in the Texas House, and Miller did not spare the chamber’s leadership, calling the response weak. The real recruiting engine right now, he argued, is the nightly news. He pointed to state representative James White saying out loud that he believes Washington is working to destabilize Texas at the border, and to Kyle Biedermann, the author of House Bill 1359, making his strongest pro-TEXIT statement yet. Miller framed the border standoff through a theory he says has guided TNM strategy since the founding: political events carry mass, and a true catalyzing moment can compress the timeline from where Texas is now to where it needs to be.

On process, he held the line he always holds. The path is a public, binding referendum, won decisively, followed by Texas making the constitutional and statutory changes to enact the will of its people. This is not a mother-may-I proposition, and he refuses to lock in post-independence policy in advance, calling that the trap that sank Scotland’s 2014 campaign. He also reported momentum beyond Texas: New Hampshire legislators are preparing a constitutional amendment for independence after the pork fest panel, and TNM stays in contact with CalExit, the Alaskan Independence Party, and movements abroad.